Picture an episode of Sesame Street. The Count does his thing — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 — eight guns! That’s how many are currently stored, safely or not, by the average ammosexual in America today. Second Amendmenters have always felt that “one is not enough,” apparently living in a fantasy world where they can grip multiple firearms at once, and because the NRA has injected into them a sort-of god complex where they and they alone can stop every single crime in progress with their magical Freedom Stick, Rambo it up anytime a “bad guy with a gun” rears his ugly head.

The number of gun-owning households in America has decreased over the years, but thanks to the NRA’s propaganda, the die-hards who insist on filling their homes with deadly weapons have really stocked up over time. In fact, when compared to 20 years ago, there are now twice as many guns in far fewer hands, according to data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

According to Wonkblog’s Christopher Ingraham, “In 2013, there were an estimated 8.1 firearms in the typical gun-owning household, according to these data. In 1994, the average gun-owning household owned 4.2 guns” — that’s a huge increase! He even provided a nifty graph showing the gun hoarding goodness in action:

Ingraham explains:

These numbers comport with what survey research has shown for several years now: the share of gun-owning households has been declining over the past 20 years and possibly more, according to numbers from Gallup and the General Social Survey. On the other hand, domestic firearm production and imports of firearms have risen sharply, particularly in recent years. If those numbers are correct, it follows that increasing gun purchases are being driven primarily by existing owners stocking up rather than first-time buyers.

Spikes in gun purchases often occur after mass shootings, which effectively act as advertisements for the gun-toting yokels of America, after a black man is elected President, and for a number of other nonsensical reasons. Often, no matter what the circumstances, the NRA recites the same tired lines: If we had more guns, this would not have happened, criminals don’s use legally-purchased guns, and the favorite — Obama’s gonna take your guns, a promise that has proved to be unfounded since before his first election.

“For many owners guns are like tools, and you need different tools for different jobs: a rifle for hunting deer. A shotgun for hunting duck. A pistol for self-defense. An AR-15 for fun. Etc,” Ingraham notes. “But in recent years, it seems many gun owners have seen fit to expand their toolboxes.”

Unfortunately, the problem is that the very same people who fall victim to fearmongering, who stockpile for some imagined overthrow of the black guy in the White House, and who genuinely believe that a gun is the answer to all of life’s minor problems, are exactly the people who probably should not have guns in the first place. The Second Amendment is a wonderful thing. It means that truly responsible people, who keep their weapons locked up safely when not in use, who store their ammunition separately, who obtain proper training, and who don’t parade around showing off their auxiliary penis in a Kroger, can own a weapon for target practice or hunting — even self-defense, though 34 innocent people die for every criminal killed by a person defending himself.